A Solution to the Paradox
by the Scribe1
Summary: Harry rejected? Not bloody likely!


Disclaimer: J.K. all the way.

Notes: Those of you who have read book four (and if you haven't yet, I advise you to keep your mouth shut and pretend you have, lest you be mocked and flayed and driven from the presence of real fans) will have noticed an inexplicable occurrence, a circumstance so strange, so bizarre, so... wrong... it boggled the mind and left me, *even me,* at an utter loss for an explanation. After many hours of hard thought and contemplation (and 640 bewildered letters to J.K. Rowling, who for some reason doesn't seem to open her mail), I finally hit upon the only reasonable, logical conclusion. I felt it my duty to impart it to you. So, without further ado, I present:

                                       A Solution to the Paradox

                                                                   by the Scribe

            "Do you have the information?"  The voice came high and frozen through the old house.

            "Yes, my Master," a hideously disfigured, one-legged man bowed clumsily to Lord Voldemort. Then he whispered a name, in a voice so low that even the snake, which coiled tensely about the legs of the large armchair the Dark Lord rested in, could not have heard it.

            Candlelight flickered malevolently, casting shadows like twisted phantoms all over the peeling wallpaper and the scratched wooden floor. Ten sick parodies of fingertips met and tapped against each other, rustling like leather against leather each time they touched.

            "Then we shall proceed accordingly. You will be well rewarded, of course, for this service as well as the other." The fingers stopped. "And the Tournament?" he asked as an afterthought.

            "All is well. The first task was a success, I have already implemented the means for the second."

            "Go before you're missed." And as the black, raw hand waved in dismissal, the servant vanished without a trace. 

            The room was quiet. Nagini slid slowly into her master's shriveled lap, arching her long body as he ran those horrible fingers over her skin. Suddenly, he started to laugh, a cruel and cold and absolutely delighted laugh. The laugh of a serial killer, let off with a warning by traffic cops. The laugh of a spider with a beehive over her web.

***********************************************************************

            "Work it, baby," whistled Lisa Stowe, a Ravenclaw fifth year, as Harry Potter strolled down the Hogwarts corridor. She ignored the giggles and blushes of the girls around her, and winked at the oblivious boy. "Stop by and have it your way, my dorm room's open late!" 

            "He didn't even hear you!" and "Lisa, you're so bad!" chorused through the air as soon as he was out of view. Cho Chang was as red as a beet.

            "I can't believe you did that," she said, shaking her head, "what if he'd heard you?"

            "That boy lives on Planet Hottie: population one. He's got other things on his mind than my filthy propositions." she said dismissively, waving her manicured hand in a gesture eerily similar to that of the Dark Lord, just hours before. "You should be grateful he didn't hear me, or I'd've snatched his fine ass right off the market, and then who would you ask to the Yule Ball?"

            Cho went even redder and the crowd dissolved once more into helpless laughter.

            "I couldn't ask him...." she stammered as they headed to Professor Moody's class, "I mean, he could go with anybody! I'm sure he has a date."

            "Nuh-uh," Lisa smirked, "my spies tell me he's turned down all offers and made none of his own. He's probably been waiting for you...." She burst out laughing at the look on Cho's face.  "I'm just kidding, Cho! God, I thought only the Weasleys could go that red. Yes, I can just imagine it: _Harry Potter languishing with love for you, picturing your face as he slays dragons and catches Snitches!"            The girls were nearly hysterical as they took their seats in front of the misshapen Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Little or no attention was paid to the lesson on the eternal importance of CONSTANT VIGILANCE. _

            They were shuffling out of the room when Moody called out for 'Miss Chang' to stay back. Cho, guiltily aware that the only notes she'd taken were heart-shaped, or Snitch-shaped, or lightning-shaped, reluctantly made her way towards his desk.

            "Yes, Professor?" she squeaked.

            Moody gave a beneficent grimace that was probably the closest approximation of a smile his scarred face would permit. 

            "I couldn't help overhearing some of your conversation when you came in the room," he began, gently.

            So far beyond red was Cho that her complexion glinted green as she tried to form words. They came out in little gasps. Professor Moody placed a calming hand on her shoulder.

            "It's all right, there's no need to be embarrassed. You're a very good student, Miss Chang," Cho was slowly receding to a modest blush, "and those are hard to come by. So I value them when I come across them. And I don't like to see them get hurt." 

            He paused and looked around the classroom, as though he were searching for the mildest way to put a difficult truth. Sighing deeply, he continued.

            "Harry Potter is a fine boy. A solid student, a loyal friend, and the damndest flier I've ever seen. It is in no way remarkable that you should... like him." Cho managed to find yet another way to blush. 

            "It would not surprise me if he did ask you to go to the Yule Ball with him. So I feel that it's necessary to warn you that he is... not exactly what he seems. That if he asked you to go with him... I don't want you to misunderstand..." 

            "What do you mean?" she asked nervously, though inside she was bursting with happiness at the thought that Harry might ask her out.

            "As a Champion, Harry is required to bring a girl to the Ball. If he wasn't, I have reason to believe he would not do so...."

            Cho blinked up at him, thoroughly puzzled.

            With a loud intake of breath, Professor Moody, rushed on, eager to get his unpleasant task over with.

            "You see, Harry is....."

***********************************************************************

            "Goddammit!!!!!!!!!!!"  Lisa punched a pillow in a rage that was only half-feigned. "It's _always the cute ones!"_

            Cho was sitting, stunned at the foot of a bed in her Ravenclaw dormitory. The other fifth year girls were gathered around, in varying states of stupefaction.

            "I never would've guessed...."

            "What a loss!"

            "Hey, do you think he and Weasley...."

            "Oooh! You're right!"

            The gossip was already brewing. This was the most potent tidbit since Neville's boggart incident. 

            "Wait till I tell--"

            "No!" Cho cried, breaking out of her stupor. The girls fell silent. "You can't tell anyone about this! _No one," she emphasized, glaring at Lisa. "It's, it's his business.... Please don't spread it around."_

            The tears she had been struggling with ever since she had left the DADA classroom finally spilled over and her friends rushed to comfort her and assure her of their uncompromising secrecy. Which they actually upheld.

            Just as Moody had intended.

***********************************************************************

_One week later:_

            The Ravenclaw fifth years were leaving yet another Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson. Professor Moody's sympathetic grimaces had served, as usual, to reopen the wound Cho had suffered from the news of her crush's 'orientation'. She was just determining that she would stop thinking of Harry, when he started to walk towards her.

            "Here comes my favorite fashion authority," Lisa murmured, causing a blast of giggles to erupt just as a nonplussed Harry reached them.

            "Er -- Cho? Could I have a word with you? " 

            "Uh-oh, Cho. Fashion Police are taking you in!" whispered the incorrigible Lisa in her lowest voice, making all the girls scream with laughter, and Harry look even more uncomfortable.

            "Okay," Cho said quietly, thinking of what Moody had said. He had to ask a girl to the ball, it was in the rules. She would only be setting herself up for a disappointment if she agreed to go.

            "Er," he said.

            He was so cute. Would it really be so bad if....

            "Wangoballwime?"

            Huh?

            "Sorry?" she asked.

            "D'you want to go to the ball with me?" he said.

            "Oh!" said Cho. She flushed with pleasure. Even though she was expecting it, it still felt good to hear the words from him. If only he didn't so obviously want her to say no! He was all red. Poor thing. Well she'd at least make it easy on him. "Oh Harry, I'm really sorry," and she truly was. "I've already said I'd go with someone else."

            "Oh," said Harry.

            Oh?! He seemed really broken up about it, she thought sarcastically.

            "Oh okay," he said, "no problem."

            Cho felt the liquid remains of her heart puddling in her shoes.

            "I'm really sorry," she said again, to keep him there a minute longer. How many times had she wanted to have a real conversation with him! He'd never want to talk to her again after this.

            "That's okay," said Harry.

            Cho felt like she was going to cry. She had to get out of there.

            "Well--" 

            "Yeah," Harry said, obviously wanting to get away.

            "Well, 'bye." she started to walk away.

            Just before she left he bothered to ask, "Who're you going with?"

            Cho stopped dead. She looked around frantically, running through a mental list of all the boys she knew. Panicked as she was, she couldn't think of one! All of a sudden, a Hufflepuff first year caught her eye. She was wearing a button on her robes that was currently saying that Harry stank, then it flashed to....

            "Oh-- Cedric," she said. "Cedric Diggory."

            She could have impaled herself on Hagrid's Pink flowered umbrella. How the hell was she going to get Cedric Diggory to go to the Ball with her?!

            "Oh right," said Harry. And he walked away.

***********************************************************************   

            "You are one masochist, girl," Lisa said over dinner that night. "If he'd asked _me I'd've said yes. I love a challenge."_

            "Well, what am I going to do? I told him I was going with Cedric; I haven't said two words to Cedric Diggory in my life!"

            "Pay him," one girl suggested.

            "_Proposition him," Lisa grinned.   _

Cho plopped her head into her hands.

            "Is he going with anyone else?" she asked.

            "No, but that French hag's been trying to get her veela claws into him. If you act quickly, I think you've got a pretty good chance."

            "I meant Harry."

            "Oh yeah, my sources say he and his 'best friend' are taking the vacuous Patil twins. That was fast work."

            "Insult to injury," Cho moaned.

            "Hey look, there's Diggory now! Hurry up, get it over with!"

            Cho forced herself to get to her feet and trudged over to the Hufflepuff table.

            "Cedric?"

            Cedric looked up, then smiled politely as he recognized her from the Quidditch field.

            ''Cho Chang, right? Ravenclaw Seeker? You creamed me in our last match."

            "Yeah," she said, trying to think of a way to casually bring the subject around to--

            "So are you going to the Yule Ball?" he asked.

            "Not unless you ask me," she said coyly. '_God, I sound just like Lisa', she thought._

            "Then I guess you're going," he smiled.

***********************************************************************

            Hundreds of miles away in the abandoned relic known as the Riddle House, a fallen wizard laughed with all the mirth he'd lost thirteen years ago. Revenge was sooooooo sweet.__

                                                       The End.

Thus I explain the inexplicable. Rest easy, small ones, all is right with the world. Ravenclaws are so gullible.

Upon reflection it occurs to me that this may be viewed as a C/H shipper fic. Hell. No. I'm just offering a ***sane* explanation for anyone turning Harry down. Ginny and Harry forever!**

Send love and hate mail.

The Scribe can be reached at

THE TENDO DOJO @aol.com            


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